History Hands
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: A snapshot of life for Daniel and Sha're on Abydos.


Title: History Hands  
Author: MissAnnThropic  
Spoilers: Stargate the movie  
Summary: A snapshot of life for Daniel and Sha're on Abydos.  
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Stargate but my rabid fan behavior. Alas.

* * *

Moonlight painted the sand dunes with blue-white highlights against nocturnal shadow. Sandy ripples like a viscous sea that changed with effort, rolled with the winds in layers of fine, churned dirt. Ra's temple cut its black silhouette into the star-freckled sky. A time only a few moons ago this place evoked terror in the people of Abydos; now Sha're made her way across the sand to the towering structure without fear. Cool sand slipped between her feet and the simple sandals she wore; it whispered at the bottom hems of her desert robes.  
  
Sha're looked once over her shoulder toward the crest she'd scaled, the sand disturbed in a jarring trail from where she'd descended toward the sacred edifice. A slightly older trail, smoothed by hours of winds and shifting sand, laid beside her own recent tracks. Her husband's.  
  
Sha're smiled and continued her trek into the half-buried structure.  
  
A trail was carved out of the pitch-black corridors with regularly spaced torches that filled the narrow halls with flickering orange light and breaths of heat that were a welcome contrast to the chill desert night.  
  
Sha're moved slowly through the halls, lightly trailing the fingers of one hand over the rough stone of the wall. Her eyes lingered on the marks and symbols etched and dyed into the beige walls. It was a wonder to her that they could mean sound, something seen becoming something uttered and heard. It was one of many small but wondrous pieces of magic her husband from distant lands had brought to her people.  
  
Sha're rounded a corner and stopped. Her hand fell away from the wall and back to her side as a smile spread over her face. The man before her had not noticed her approach. His engrossment allowed Sha're a quiet moment to watch him.  
  
He was dressed in robes so he looked a little more like an Abydonian now, but the round pieces of glass he wore on his face and hair more like the color of wet sand than the blackstones made him very different. He was sitting next to the wall, one leg extended in front of him and the other tucked under his knee. In his hand he reverently held a broken piece of pottery, aged and layered in thick dirt. As he studied the shard closely his lips moved silently in quiet counsel with the relic.  
  
Sha're cant her head to the left and smiled at him.  
  
"The people think you strange for always being here, Husband."  
  
Daniel startled, in momentary panic all but cradled the pottery piece in his hands, and his blue eyes moved immediately to where she stood. Sha're thought his eyes looked like the skies; she could stare at them forever.  
  
"Sha're." His voice caressed the sounds of her name like they were a song, then he smiled. He held out one hand to her and Sha're needed no further encouragement.  
  
She made her way over to him, slipped her hand into his, and lowered herself to the ground beside him. He released her hand only to slip his over her back and loop around her waist. Sha're snuggled closer to him and when he turned to smile gently at her she captured his mouth in a kiss. He even tasted exotic and she truly loved how he tasted. Sha're leaned closer as his tongue met hers.  
  
The other women laughed that she could not keep her hands off Daniel, but they were not married to this man from the stars or they would understand Sha're's fascination.  
  
Sha're finally pulled away and smiled warmly at Daniel. The drunken haze to his eyes, that she had put there, gave her great pleasure. The torchlight danced in orange spirits across his face, tempting Sha're with every newborn shadow to touch him.  
  
"Does it bother you?" Daniel asked suddenly.  
  
Sha're settled down next to her husband and huddled into his side. She draped her arms around his shoulders, fingers playing in his sandy hair, as she said softly, "As long as I am welcome to be here with you, Dan-yel, it does not."  
  
Daniel's arm around her waist squeezed tighter and he leaned into her, turning his head to nuzzle his face into the crook of her neck, wonderfully soft lips nipping and kissing her skin. "You're always welcome here with me, Sha're; you will always be welcome with me wherever I am."  
  
Sha're inclined her head slightly under his attention, eyes fluttering closed at the touch of his mouth. She looked down at the pottery he still held gently in one hand.  
  
"What is this, Husband?"  
  
Daniel stopped, momentarily dazed, then looked down at the shard of clay. "This... I think it could be from the same period as the Ancient Egyptians of Earth. It may even date to a time shortly after your ancestors were separated from the Egyptians on my world."  
  
Sha're dropped her head to Daniel's shoulder. She liked how she fit here. Inhaling deeply, she breathed in the unique scent of her husband as she murmured, "Why does it interest you so? These things of the dead."  
  
Daniel's hand moved from her waist and was moments later in her hair, threading through barely-tamed black curls absently.  
  
"I don't know what it is about these things, these relics of the past, but they mean something to me. On my world, history is treasured, it's studied."  
  
"That is how you knew the old tongue?"  
  
Daniel nodded, hand sliding down to her arm and holding her close against him. "Yes. On my world that language is no longer used, but those like me who study the past, we can keep a dead language alive in some small way." For this thing, Sha're could hear it in his voice, he was proud.  
  
Sha're reached for the pottery piece with one hand. Daniel did not move, let her extend her fingers toward the shattered old pot, and as her fingers skirted the time-smoothed broken edge she shook her head what little she could from its place on Daniel's shoulder. To her, it was a useless fragment, but to Daniel it was so much more. She wondered that he could look at the same things she did and see something so different. "It is strange to think of these things that we discard becoming treasures to those like you. Is everyone on your world this way with old things?"  
  
Daniel chuckled. He put down the pottery piece with great care and once he'd freed his second hand moved it to her face, tracing her jaw tenderly as he answered, "No... only people who love to revive the past are like me."  
  
Sha're turned her face into his cupping hand and kissed his palm. She could taste the grit of dust from his day of work in the temple. "Then I think they are the best of your people, my Dan-yel, if they are like you."  
  
Daniel laughed again and Sha're smiled back. Even when she was perplexed by her husband his laugh made her happy. "What makes you laugh, Husband?" She sat back to look at him, wanting to see his sky-blue eyes when they were alight with humor.  
  
Daniel looked at her, expression smitten and amazed, and he said, "Archaeologists on Earth aren't taken very seriously, for the most part. We're geeks, nerds... We're as strange to most of my own people as I am to your people. On my world, Sha're, men like me never end up with women like you."  
  
"Like me?" Her smile fell a little, afraid to think she was not measuring up to the women of Daniel's home world. She did not want her husband to find her lacking.  
  
Daniel grinned. His thumb brushed over her cheek and journeyed into her black hair. "Beautiful, wonderful, brave, intelligent women."  
  
She resisted the urge to sigh in relief. "If a woman on your world would not want you then who would such a woman choose?"  
  
"Oh... rich men, attractive men, athletic men, men who don't decide they want to spend half their lives among the bones of dead pharaohs."  
  
Sha're moved forward and kissed Daniel again. She snaked her arms around his neck and drew him closer. For a moment there was nothing beyond the two of them. She broke the kiss, but did not pull away, as she said lowly, "I would choose you always, Dan-yel, if I had a thousand men of your world at my tent."  
  
"Kasuf would be very angry, I would think."  
  
Sha're laughed, moved in to suckle a second on Daniel's bottom lip, then asked, "What becomes of the things you uncover when you work in the temples of other gods?"  
  
"Well... they go to museums mostly."  
  
"What is a 'museum'?"  
  
Daniel reached up and removed his glasses. He rubbed at his wearied eyes and answered as he set his spectacles down on the ground beside the pottery, "It's a building, like a temple, where precious things from the past are kept, and people can go see them."  
  
"So they can hold them and feel the past as you do?"  
  
"No... people aren't allowed to touch things in a museum. There's the concern that too many people would not be careful and these treasures would be damaged and lost forever. No one wants to see something survive a thousand years only to suffer at the hands of someone who doesn't have the right respect for history."  
  
Sha're slipped her hand into Daniel's, threading her fingers through his and lingering on the texture of his palm. His hands were delicate and soft, not like the Abydonian men's. He was free of the roughened calluses of a slave and the care his fingers moved with was so much greater than the sometimes graceless dexterity of men like her father. This about Daniel she had noticed from their first night together, and it captivated her nearly as much as his eyes. She whispered, "But you may touch these things when it is forbidden for others?"  
  
Daniel rubbed his thumb softly over her knuckles, caress flitting over her skin like a dune bird skimming over the sand. "Yes, but I would never let harm come to an artifact in my possession. They're too important."  
  
A slow grin spread over Sha're's face and she dropped her other hand on to Daniel's thigh. She pressed tighter against him and dropped her head just enough to look up at him through her lashes.  
  
"And if I were a piece of history in your hands, Dan-yel, how would you hold me?"  
  
Daniel's eyes turned up to her then, hooded and dark. His own answering smile began to form and he reached for her. His free hand slipped around her neck and his lips found hers. His hand wriggled free of hers only to slip behind her back and draw her closer.  
  
Sha're responded with passionate abandon, unafraid of being seen. Only she and Daniel came to Ra's temple, only her Daniel wanted to become lost in the timelessness of the god's abode.  
  
Daniel's hands found the edges of her robe, gently loosening the ties and letting the layered material slip from her tanned body. His infinitely careful touch wandered her curves, almost reverent.  
  
The other women of Sha're's tribe thought her husband a peculiar stranger.  
  
For her part, Sha're surrendered herself to Daniel Jackson and his history hands.  
  
END 


End file.
